Heidegger

Allen lets this out:

> Heidegger got better than he deserved in my class the other day. We
> were discussing Gelassenheit, and one of students asked if Heidegger
> might have been talking about letting the earth be (what it is),
> rather than using it to our pleasure, with no thought of the
> violation of the being of the earth. And then of course, there is
> “:The question Concerning Technology” as further evidence of this
> way of caring. I let it be.

But you haven’t have you? (you spoke the above). As the Beatles so put it
“there will be an answer, let it be”, it’s interesting to think the ‘let it
be’ as a question (that might have an answer) and not as a piece of dogma or
a simple statement of fact (or fiction). Of course, letting be-ing
be(come/go/stay) is not the same as letting the earth be (whatever that
means, not meant cynically or ironically, being my main concern
thinking-wise), although some thought on the being (earth/moon) that might
be let be might just throw some refracted light on the question of letting
be-ing be (or not). Re-fraction is every where in this precinct. This is a
subject that I haven’t even begun discussing with Michael Eldred with
respect to the refracted question of (the) value (of the earth) and thus
further, will-to-power, and thus further still, ge-stell, partly because I
haven’t thought enough or well enough. It’s difficult.

Briefly, thinking letting beings be, art can throw some light here: is
Richard Long’s long walks letting the landscape be? His art is certainly not
the records and photos and sculptures that are the traces of his work (for
galleries and museums and artbooks), but the very walking/path-making its
self, and thus not exhibitable, truly ‘conceptual art’ (unlike Damien
Hurst’s stuffed fish or Tracy Emin’s unmade bed: they are simply stuffed
fish and unmade beds). For me, letting a being be can not itself be
(considered) a value, a perspectivisation of the will-to-power (because that
is not letting the being be but making it over for a pleasure-pulse or a
power-point). Thus letting-be will not be seen at all as what it is
(letting-be will not be let be), rather once again posed as an other value
(the value of art? a cultural goodie? the use of uselessness?). But can it
be seen in terms of the not-valued? Perhaps rather the in-valuable (but not
valuable)…

I don’t know where ‘green’ comes into this in my terms since such green-ness
is merely now another value, a setting-upon that which is, etc.

More later.

regards

michaelP

Posted on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
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